Category Archives: Authors A-E

About the book, Hidden Sea

Paperback: 214 pages

Publisher: Miles Arceneaux (October 1, 2017)

Charlie Sweetwater saw Mexico—especially the Mexican Gulf Coast—as a spiritual second home. He’d worked, played and lived there for much of his life, and thought the country suited him better than anywhere this side of his home on the Texas Coast.

But now a worrisome and potentially dangerous development has shown up on Charlie’s radar. Young Augustus Sweetwater, affectionately known as Augie, hasn’t reported in after completing a south-of-the-border sales trip for Sweetwater Marine. Raul, Augie’s father and Charlie’s nephew, is worried sick. Drug cartel violence in Mexico has reached epidemic proportions and Augie’s path took him through the heart of the narcotraficantes’ territory.

Charlie figures Augie just went off the grid to do some well-deserved fishing, surfing and beer-drinking at the end of his trip. He’d done the same in his time. But as Augie’s unexplained absence grows, Charlie and Raul become increasingly alarmed and set off for Mexico to bring their boy home.

What they unearth is far more than the sum of their fears. The familiar and friendly Gulf of Mexico has turned into a hidden sea plagued by smugglers, human traffickers, crooked politicians and even pirates. And Augie is lost somewhere in the middle of it all.

Charlie and Raul must summon an unlikely cast of characters to aid them, including a hilariously dissolute ex-pat musician, a priest whose faith struggles against the rising tide of refugee migration, a Mexican tycoon who may have secrets of his own and a beautiful maritime “repo man”. At the end of their quest, as the deepest secret of all is revealed, Charlie Sweetwater learns that neither Raul and Augie, nor the Gulf of Mexico, nor even himself, will ever be the same again.

Praise for Hidden Sea

“A riveting story from Texas that wanders down the cartel-invested Gulf Coast of Mexico and drifts across to lawless Cuba. The characters are as salty as the sea and the plot pulls you along as powerfully as the loop current. –W.F. Strong, Stories from Texas, Texas Standard Radio Network

“Hidden Sea is a total blast: smart, funny, and riveting, with unforgettably colorful characters and a world so alive that you’ll swear you’re really there.”Lou Berney, Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone

“In Hidden Sea, Miles Arceneaux tosses us in the drink of a timely contemporary adventure tale with the Sweetwater clan, complete with pirates, slave ships, family secrets, and the mother of all plot twists, in his patented Gulf Coast noir style.” Michelle Newby Lancaster, Contributing Editor, Lone Star Literary Life, NBCC Literary Critic

In Case You Were Wondering about Hidden Sea:

If the Miles Arceneaux book series was turned into a board game like CLUE, these items would be the murder weapons – each have been used to dispense with one of the characters in our five Gulf Coast mysteries.

gaff hook

Karankawa lance

rusty fillet knife

rolled up newspaper

pick ax

48” pipe wrench

wadcutter cartridges from a Smith &Wesson Model 1913 automatic

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About the author, Miles Arceneaux

“Miles Arceneaux” is the pen name of three long-time Texas friends. James R. Dennis is a former attorney turned Dominican friar who lives in San Antonio. Brent Douglass is an international businessman from Austin. John T. Davis, also of Austin, is a journalist and author. Together, as “Miles,” they have been featured authors at the Texas Book Festival, the San Antonio Book Festival, and the Lubbock Book Festival.

Buy, read, and discuss The Curse of Sacerdozio

About the author, Glen Aaron

Glen Aaron was born in Big Spring, Texas and raised in Midland. In 1962, while attending Baylor, he ran for State Representative from Midland at he age of 21. He lost that election in a runoff by 42 votes. Deciding politics was not for him, he graduated Baylor with a BA and moved on to the University of Texas law school. There, he won the Moot Court competition arguing before the Supreme Court of Texas sitting en banc. After acquiring his JD, Glen spent forty years in trial law and international business and banking. Today, he lives in Midland with his wife Jane Hellinghausen and two rottweilers. He enjoys writing and working with the Permian Basin Bookies. Author of: The Ronnie Lee and Jackie Bancroft Spencer Morgan Story, a tale of people, greed, envy, manipulation — even crime; The Colonel George Trofimoff Story, the tale of America’s highest ranking military officer convicted of spying; The Prison Experience; The Prison People.

About the book, It’s Messy

Hardcover: 224 pages

Publisher: Harper Wave (September 19, 2017)

In this deeply personal collection of essays, creator of the The Conversation Amanda de Cadenet shares the hard-won advice and practical insights she’s gained through her experiences as businesswoman, friend, wife, and mother.

Amanda is on a mission to facilitate conversations that allow all women to be seen, heard, and understood. Through her multimedia platform The Conversation, she interviews some of today’s most bad ass women—from Hillary Clinton to Lady Gaga—in no-holds-barred conversations that get to the heart of what means to be female. Now, in It’s Messy, Amanda offers readers an extension of that conversation, inviting them into her life and sharing her own story.

From childhood fame to a high-profile marriage (and divorce) to teen motherhood to the sexism that threatened to end her career before it started, Amanda shares the good, the bad, and the messy of her life, synthesizing lessons she’s learned along the way. Through it all, she offers an original perspective as a feminist on the front lines of celebrity culture. Edgy, irreverent, poignant and provocative, It’s Messy addresses the issues, concerns, and experiences relevant to women today.

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About the author, Amanda de Cadenet

Amanda de Cadenet is a creative force with a lifelong career in the media. She began as a host on British television at the age of fifteen and became a sought-after photographer shortly after—as a result her impressive photography career already spans nearly twenty years. She is the youngest woman ever to shoot a Vogue cover and has photographed many of the most influential figures in popular and political culture. As a media entrepreneur, Amanda is the creator of The Conversation, a series that showcases her in-depth interviews on real topics with celebrated women. Whether it’s in conversations with Lady Gaga, Sarah Silverman, Zoe Saldana, Chelsea Handler, or Gwyneth Paltrow, or in discussions with devoted followers of her social channels, Amanda delivers an honest and authentic voice. The series has aired in eighteen countries and is featured online, with over ten million viewers. In January 2016, Amanda conducted an exclusive one-on-one interview with presidential candidate Secretary Clinton. In February 2016, Amanda launched #Girlgaze, a digital media company utilizing user submitted content and highlighting the work of Gen Z women photographers and directors.

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My Thoughts

I love collections of essays and short stories. You can pick them up and put them down, start from random points, if you’re of a mind to, and leave them in the bathroom for a week, to be read when you’re pretty much a captive audience. When such a collection is good, it hooks you, makes you think, makes you want to phone the author and gush over her words.

It’s Messy was good – in that way – for me.

The author, Amanda de Cadenet is, like me, a solid GenXer. Okay, she’s British and comes from a famous family, and we had radically different lives, but she has a sensibility I really responded to – to the point where I was following my husband around our house reading bits of her essays out loud.

Here’s what I loved about It’s Messy: It’s candid – it’s candid in the kind of way I wish I was comfortable being. It’s not ha-ha funny, but there’s a wry undertone that runs through even the most poignant of pieces. I responded to that very strongly. And mostly – it’s universal. Sure, the details are specific to the author, but the emotional truths she shares, the life lessons she relates – those apply to all of us.

I also liked – and this may seem a small thing, but in an age when we are just learning about intersectionality, it’s important – in her introduction she referred to “anyone who identifies as female.” As an ally, that phrase sold me on the entire book.

And, let me be clear, It’s Messy: Essays on Boys, Boobs, and Badass Women, is a great book. I laughed, I cried, I felt like I’d been having a two hundred-ish-page-long conversation with a dear friend, the kind who is insightful and blunt, but also caring.

Because people always want to know what our favorites are, I will call out two of the essays as things I responded to particularly. The first is “Life According to Little Amanda” which is sort of a bio, but a little bit deeper, and slightly less linear. While I’ve never sat down next to a member of Duran Duran and ended up dating him, or spend time in juvie, I know what it is to feel out of place, or like regular life just isn’t working.

The second which I particularly enjoyed despite the fact that I’m not a parent, is “How to Parent in the Time of Trump,” because it’s so very important that we nurture our younger generation but that we’re also honest with them. Many of my friends have kids who are asking the same sorts of questions Amanda’s kids are asking, and I feel like I should make copies of this essay and share it with all of them.

Naah… they all just need the whole book.

Goes well with a tall glass of milk (or your favorite milk-alternative) and a slice of leftover birthday cake.

About the book, At Wave’s End

Paperback: 364 pages

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (August 15, 2017)

After a childhood as unpredictable as the flip of a coin, Faith Sterling has finally found her comfort zone in the kitchen of an upscale Manhattan restaurant. A workaholic chef, at least there she’s in control. So when her free-spirited and often-gullible mother, Connie, calls to announce that she’s won a bed-and-breakfast on the Jersey Shore, Faith’s patience boils over. Convinced the contest is a scam, she rushes to Wave’s End to stop Connie from trading her steady job for an uncertain future.

When a hurricane ravages the coast, Faith is torn between supporting the shore rescue and bailing out her beleaguered boss. But the storm dredges up deceptions and emotional debris that threaten to destroy the inn’s future and her fragile bonds with her mother.

As the women struggle to salvage both the inn and their relationship, Faith begins to see herself and Connie in a new light—and to realize that some moments are better left to chance.

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About the author, Patricia Perry Donovan

Patricia Perry Donovan is an American journalist who writes about healthcare. Her fiction has appeared at Gravel Literary, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable and in other literary journals. The mother of two grown daughters, she lives at the Jersey shore with her husband.

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My Thoughts

I loved Deliver Her when I read it last spring, so when Patricia Perry Donovan emailed me, asking if I wanted to review her newest title, At Wave’s End, this summer, I was happy to do so. Then I found out it was being released two days before my birthday.

Well, Happy Birthday to me, and happy reading to everyone else, because this novel is the perfect way to beat the heat of the dog days of summer. Faith, a professional chef, and Connie, her mother who is always searching for the next, great, money-making opportunity, have the kind of relationship a lot of us do, I think. They love each other fiercely, but Connie thinks her daughter is selling herself short, and Faith worries her mother will be the victim of a scam.

Then Connie arrives with the news that she’s won a bed & breakfast on the Jersey Shore.

As a Jersey girl myself, I’m always excited when people set novels there, because it’s like visiting home again. In this novel, that sense of homecoming is tempered somewhat by Hurricane Nadine – inspired by Hurricane Sandy – which trashes the coastline. Reading it took me back to October, 2012 where I was watching an NJ news station over the internet from my home in Texas, and texting my mother, “I feel like I’m watching my entire childhood being washed away.”

Having been back east fairly recently, and noticed how so many of the shore towns are still rebuilding, five years later, was a visceral experience. So, too, where many of the chapters in this novel.

But Donovan is an excellent storyteller who creates vivid, realistic characters, and even at the most devastating points in the novel there is warmth and humor and the bonds of family and friends.

Don’t think, though, that this novel is all about the wreckage of a major storm. It’s not. That’s just backdrop. It’s really about family and friends, chasing dreams, figuring out what you need vs. what you think you want, and how all those things tied together.

Like Connie, I have been tempted by those “win an inn” contests, but I’ve always managed to resist the urge. Like Faith, I’m sometimes too generous with my friends, to my own detriment. I found both of these women at the center of the story to be completely believable as women, as people.

At 364 pages, At Wave’s End is long enough to tackle everything from the first look at the B&B to the aftermath of the storm, and yet it’s also a fast read, suitable for the last weeks of summer. Dip your toes in the water of this story, let the sun and sand keep you reading. You won’t be sorry.

Goes well with, a classic NJ pork roll sandwich and a glass of iced tea, eaten at a picnic table on the porch.

About the book, The Beach House: Coming Home

Bestselling author Georgia Bockoven is at her powerful and emotional peak in this novel perfect for fans of Nancy Thayer and Elin Hilderbrand.

Unlock the door to the beach house…a place where life slows down, people come together, and love is the strongest force of all.

After you’ve given your baby to strangers, what do you say when someone asks if you have children?

Fourteen years ago, Melinda Campbell was fifteen and a half, pregnant and terrified. Desperate to protect her baby from a malicious grandfather and needed at home to take care of her own critically ill father, Melinda makes the most generous, heart-wrenching choice of all: adoption. Now she’s living the successful life her father struggled to give her, but missing her daughter with a longing that shadows every joy.

Jeremy Richmond knows the beach house the way a painter knows his canvas, intimately and focused on detail. His life revolves around his adopted daughter, Shiloh, the girl who’s owned his heart from the moment he first held her as an infant. They were a picture-perfect family until Shiloh was diagnosed with pediatric lupus and Jeremy’s wife walked away.

When Shiloh tells her father she’s tired of fighting her illness and wants to meet her biological mother before it’s too late, Jeremy agrees to find a woman he has no desire to meet.

From the moment Melinda and Jeremy come face-to-face, they realize their worlds will never be the same. Will the beach house that has harbored troubled hearts for decades prove to be the balm they need to heal…?

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About the author, Georgia Bockoven

Georgia Bockoven is an award-winning author who began writing fiction after a successful career as a freelance journalist and photographer. Her books have sold more than three million copies worldwide. The mother of two, she resides in Northern California with her husband, John.

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My Thoughts

I fell in love with Georgia Bockoven’s Beach House series years ago when I picked up the first one on the “new paperback” table at Barnes and Noble. All these years – and books – later, I’m still hooked on this fictional house in Santa Cruz, CA, and the stories that live and breathe within its walls.

In this story, we meet Melinda who gave up her baby for adoption when she was a young girl, and Jeremy, that baby’s adopted father, as well as Shiloh (formerly Danielle) the baby – now thirteen – in question. It’s the kind of story I expect will resonate with any child who is adopted, or has adopted siblings.

But it’s also a story that can be enjoyed by anyone.

Bockoven’s characters are richly drawn, with flaws that make them seem like real people, and detailed backstories that provide as much subtext as text. She depicts human emotion with great insight, and she’s particularly adept at inserting moments of levity – sometimes laughter through tears, sometimes just laughter – exactly when they’re needed.

It would be easy to dismiss The Beach House: Coming Home as a ‘beach read,’ because of it’s title and setting. Truly, there’s nothing wrong with turning toward lighter fare during the summer, but that generalization would do this book a disservice, because it’s a wonderful family drama, replete with lush details and full of supporting characters (Cheryl from the cottage next door, for one) that sing off the page.

Goes well with mango-peach iced tea and steamed artichokes with garlic and butter.

About the book, Concepción and the Baby Brokers

In nine thematically linked stories set largely in Guatemala, Concepción and the Baby Brokers brings to life characters struggling with universal emotions and dilemmas in a place unfamiliar to most Americans. From the close-knit community of Todos Santos to the teeming danger of Guatemala City, to a meat-packing plant in Michigan and the gardens of Washington DC, Deborah Clearman shows us the human cost of international adoption, drug trafficking, and immigration.

A Cup of Tears, the opening novella, reveals a third-world baby farm, seen through the eyes of a desperate wet nurse, a baby broker, and an American adoptive mother. In “The Race” a young man returns to his native village to ride in a disastrous horse race. “English Lessons” tells of a Guatemalan immigrant in Washington DC who learns more than English from a public library volunteer. A teenage girl tries to trap her professor into marriage in “Saints and Sinners.”

With searing humanity, Clearman exposes the consequences of American exceptionalism, and the daily magic and peril that inform and shape ordinary lives.

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About the author, Deborah Clearman

Deborah Clearman is the author of a novel Todos Santos, from Black Lawrence Press. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals. She is the former Program Director for NY Writers Coalition, and she teaches creative writing in such nontraditional venues as senior centers, public housing projects, and the jail for women on Rikers Island. She lives in New York City and Guatemala.

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My Thoughts

I approached this book with some trepidation because I knew the subject would be both gritty and dark. I wasn’t wrong: it is both of those things. It’s also powerfully moving, heartbreaking, and something I feel should be required reading in women’s studies and contemporary literature courses throughout the Western world.

Rather than taking the stories individually – because this book is really a novella with supporting side stories – my thoughts are on the collection as a whole. Clearman, who lives in Guatemala part of the time, writes with the intimate familiarity that only comes from being steeped in a culture. I don’t want to say that I enjoyed her work, because these stories aren’t escapist fiction or light reading, but I appreciated the strong characters – mostly female – she created.

It surprised me, actually, that the baby brokers were predominantly women. There’s a sense of betrayal that comes when women work against each other, though perhaps that’s a cultural bias of mine – I was privileged to grow up in a supportive, feminist environment where women were encouraged – are encouraged – to support each other.

The women in these stories, however were a mixture of all types of people – some incredibly sympathetic, apparently believing they were saving babies, and some were ruthless, only involved in the baby trade for the money. Some were victims of circumstance, others the engineers of their own fate.

While there were male characters in all of the stories, it is the women that really stood out for me. I think it makes sense, though, that so many of the main characters were female – it provides a perspective that men just don’t have.

Well written and incredibly compelling, this collection of stories, Concepción and the Baby Brokers is a must-read.

TOUGH JUSTICE COUNTDOWN

This action-packed thriller unfolds in eight gripping installments, each written by top authors including Carla Cassidy, Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.

This review covers only Part I.

About the book, Tough Justice Countdown (Part 1 of 8)

Print Length: 85 pages

Publisher: Harlequin Special Releases (February 1, 2017)

Tick. Tock. BOOM.

FBI Special Agent Lara Grant had thought that she’d put her past behind her—finally—with her last case. But now a serial bomber is targeting Manhattan’s elite power players, offering them a choice between saving hundreds of lives or seeing their darkest secrets exposed. Lara is working with the Crisis Management Unit to stop the bomber, but how will she react when she’s the one who has to choose between truth…or death?

Part 1 of 8: an explosive new installment in the thrilling FBI serial from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.

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My Thoughts:

At 85 pages, Tough Justice Countdown (Part I) is a quick read, more a novella than a short story. It opens, almost literally with a *boom* – a bomb threat that is actually (apparently) followed through on within the first couple of pages. It’s an amazing way to start off a series, and from that moment, I felt like we were racing through an adventure reminiscent of the best episodes of shows like 24 and Person of Interest.

FBI agents Nick and Lara – especially Lara, as this is really her story more than anyone else’s quickly became very real to me, as much so as if they were crime-solving partners in a movie or television series (Netflix needs to buy this series. Seriously.), and I liked the way they were effective partners while actively working, but also supported each other emotionally. This is a Harlequin series so I’m assuming there will be overt romance in later installments (I have them all, but am reviewing this one without having read the rest, because I didn’t want to color my perceptions with too much foreknowledge), so I’m going on record: I ship Lara/Nick.

Obviously there were many other characters. Victoria was a standout for me, as were Xander and James.

I liked the way the procedural parts of this story were full of brisk professionalism, and included some of that hurry-up-and-wait sense that is so prevalent when you’re waiting for information, or trying to connect dots.

Overall, I thought this was a gripping story with likeable characters, and I recommend it, and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Goes well with pastrami and swiss on rye with good mustard and a bottle of vanilla seltzer or cherry coke.

Giveaway (ends 2/14 at 11:59 PM Central)

One lucky reader in the US will win a digital copy of Part I of this series. Since it’s a digital copy, this giveaway is limited to Twitter. Find MY post with this review (I’m @melysse), retweet it, and also reply to it telling me you’ve done so.

About the book, Searching for John Hughes

For all fans of John Hughes and his hit films such as National Lampoon’s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, and Home Alone, comes Jason Diamond’s hilarious memoir of growing up obsessed with the iconic filmmaker’s movies—a preoccupation that eventually convinces Diamond he should write Hughes’ biography and travel to New York City on a quest that is as funny as it is hopeless.

For as long as Jason Diamond can remember, he’s been infatuated with John Hughes’ movies. From the outrageous, raunchy antics in National Lampoon’s Vacation to the teenage angst in The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink to the insanely clever and unforgettable Home Alone, Jason could not get enough of Hughes’ films. And so the seed was planted in his mind that it should fall to him to write a biography of his favorite filmmaker. It didn’t matter to Jason that he had no qualifications, training, background, platform, or direction. Thus went the years-long, delusional, earnest, and assiduous quest to reach his goal. But no book came out of these years, and no book will. What he did get was a story that fills the pages of this unconventional, hilarious memoir.

In Searching for John Hughes, Jason tells how a Jewish kid from a broken home in a Chicago suburb—sometimes homeless, always restless—found comfort and connection in the likewise broken lives in the suburban Chicago of John Hughes’ oeuvre. He moved to New York to become a writer. He started to write a book he had no business writing. In the meantime, he brewed coffee and guarded cupcake cafes. All the while, he watched John Hughes movies religiously.

Though his original biography of Hughes has long since been abandoned, Jason has discovered he is a writer through and through. And the adversity of going for broke has now been transformed into wisdom. Or, at least, a really, really good story.

In other words, this is a memoir of growing up. One part big dream, one part big failure, one part John Hughes movies, one part Chicago, and one part New York. It’s a story of what comes after the “Go for it!” part of the command to young creatives to pursue their dreams—no matter how absurd they might seem at first.

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About the author, Jason Diamond

Jason Diamond is the sports editor at RollingStone.com and founder of Vol. 1 Brooklyn. His work has been published by The New YorkTimes, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Pitchfork, Esquire, Vice and many other outlets. He was born in Skokie, Illinois, but currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife, his two cats and his dog named Max.

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My Thoughts

Like the author of this memoir, Jason Diamond, I grew up on John Hughes movies. Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy were my virtual best friends when I was a teenager, and while I never lived in Chicago or New York, I completely understand the feeling that comes from seeing the place you live depicted in a movie (thank you Kevin Smith for making people aware that Highlands, NJ is a place).

I always feel a bit weird about reviewing memoirs, because I feel like I’m judging the person, and not their story. In this case, I really enjoyed the story – the journey that Jason took from cupcake bouncer to witty and read writer.

I also enjoyed Jason’s writing style. I was completely unfamiliar with his work before I read Searching for John Hughes, but his ‘voice’ is so engaging, with a good balance of wry wit, self-deprecation, and frank observation, that I’m eager to go find his stuff at Rolling Stone and read every word.

Ultimately, this is a memoir that will speak to anyone who is considering a major creative endeavor, who hates their current job and wants to find something fulfilling, or who grew up on movies like Pretty in Pink and wants to recapture the feeling of seeing those films for the first time.

It’s a compelling read, a fast read, and one I’m really glad I got to experience.

Goes well with a cupcake (but please, chocolate, not double vanilla) and a perfect cappuccino.

About the book, Madame Presidentess

Forty-eight years before women were granted the right to vote, one woman dared to run for President of the United States, yet her name has been virtually written out of the history books.

Rising from the shame of an abusive childhood, Victoria Woodhull, the daughter of a con-man and a religious zealot, vows to follow her destiny, one the spirits say will lead her out of poverty to “become ruler of her people.”

But the road to glory is far from easy. A nightmarish marriage teaches Victoria that women are stronger and deserve far more credit than society gives. Eschewing the conventions of her day, she strikes out on her own to improve herself and the lot of American women.

Over the next several years, she sets into motion plans that shatter the old boys club of Wall Street and defile even the sanctity of the halls of Congress. But it’s not just her ambition that threatens men of wealth and privilege; when she announces her candidacy for President in the 1872 election, they realize she may well usurp the power they’ve so long fought to protect.

Those who support her laud “Notorious Victoria” as a gifted spiritualist medium and healer, a talented financial mind, a fresh voice in the suffrage movement, and the radical idealist needed to move the nation forward. But those who dislike her see a dangerous force who is too willing to speak out when women are expected to be quiet. Ultimately, “Mrs. Satan’s” radical views on women’s rights, equality of the sexes, free love and the role of politics in private affairs collide with her tumultuous personal life to endanger all she has built and change how she is viewed by future generations.

This is the story of one woman who was ahead of her time – a woman who would make waves even in the 21st century – but who dared to speak out and challenge the conventions of post-Civil War America, setting a precedent that is still followed by female politicians today.

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About the author, Nicole Evelina

Nicole Evelina is an award-winning historical fiction and romantic comedy writer. Her most recent novel, Madame Presidentess, a historical novel about Victoria Woodhull, America’s first female Presidential candidate, was the first place winner in the Women’s US History category of the 2015 Chaucer Awards for Historical Fiction.

Her debut novel, Daughter of Destiny, the first book of an Arthurian legend trilogy that tells Guinevere’s life story from her point of view, was named Book of the Year by Chanticleer Reviews, took the Grand Prize in the 2015 Chatelaine Awards for Women’s Fiction/Romance, won a Gold Medal in the fantasy category in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and was short-listed for the Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction. Been Searching for You, her contemporary romantic comedy, won the 2015 Romance Writers of America (RWA) Great Expectations and Golden Rose contests.

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My Thoughts

Reading this book during the countdown to the US Presidential election was difficult for me. Yes, it fit the theme, and I enjoy reading about early feminists. I found, though, that that the reality of what was going on politically was coloring my perception of the novel, and my personal politics made this book a struggle for me.

This does not mean that it isn’t good.

Author Nicole Evelina clearly researched her subject well. The characters felt real and dimensional, and she managed to make a period setting feel accessible to a contemporary readership. At no point did this story feel untruthful. The language, the struggles of Victoria and her family, all had nuance and depth.

At times, however, especially in the early parts of the novel, Victoria’s story seemed unrelentingly dark, so much so that I wished for something – anything – to break the darkness and tension, and let me breathe.

As well, my struggles were with the accurate, and at times harsh, portrayal of the way women, and especially women who were not well-off, lived in the decades before the 19th amendment to the Constitution and their battle to be seen and heard, and to make an impact on the world in which they lived.

If you’re looking for a feel-good novel about girl power and early feminism, this is not for you.

If you want a deeply moving, fictionalization of the lift of a real person, you will be provoked, intrigued, and satisfied by this novel.

NEW YORK CITY – Emmy-nominated Robin R. Cutler is known for her ability to bring compelling historical stories to life both on screen and on the page. Following her book about her grandfather, Arizona humorist Dick Wick Hall (The Laughing Desert, 2012), Cutler explores the world of her mother, Jane Hall, a literary prodigy published as a 10-year-old by the L.A. Times. In the masterfully written and researched Such Mad Fun (Sept. 8, 2016), Cutler brings the glamour of yesteryear to life as a newly-orphaned Jane journeys from a mining town in Arizona to Manhattan’s Café Society, and then to work among the bright lights and big stars of Hollywood.

A Kirkus starred review noted: “This portrait of a more literary mass-market America offers much food for reflection on modern culture,” and described Cutler’s book as “a valuable, absorbing contribution to the history of women, golden-age Hollywood and America’s magazine culture of the 1930s and ‘40s.”

About the book, Such Mad Fun: Ambition and Glamour in Hollywood’s Golden Age

Paperback: 328 pages

Publisher: View Tree Press (May 23, 2016)

Language: English

“I was a candle on the president’s birthday cake!” On Jan. 30, 1934, Jane Hall was exuberant as she whirled around the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria in honor of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 52nd birthday. For 19-year-old Jane, this ball wasn’t just fun; it was research. At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Jane wrote the story and the script for the “best social comedy of 1939,” These Glamour Girls, and established a lively camaraderie with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who worked in the office next door to hers. But Jane’s ambition conflicted with the expectations of her family, her friends, and the era in which she lived. Gathered from her mother’s diaries and scores of letters, this coming-of-age story takes us on an unforgettable journey through the 1930s as Jane tries to determine who she’s meant to be.

Buy, read, and discuss Such Mad Fun.

About the author, Robin Cutler

Cutler holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and has been a public historian for more than three decades. She co-produced the Emmy-nominated dramatic series, ROANOAK, for PBS’ American Playhouse. A lover of animals, trees, salted caramel, baseball, PBS and classic films, these days Cutler can be found in New York, in Florida or with her daughters in California.

What I’m Writing: MissMeliss.com

28 Plays Later – Challenge #28 We started with a “Brave Little Soldier” so let’s end with a “Coward Big Pacifist”. Bonus points to anyone who knows how many bonus points they have and incorporate that in the play. (Note: Mine is an extremely loose interpretation) ONE PLAY MORE Excerpt: ME: So, this […]

28 Plays Later – Challenge #27 Pick a previous challenge and do it again. I picked #5 – the provided first line challenge. UP IN SMOKE Excerpt: SAUL (gesturing at the item): Is that it? GERTL: What, this? It’s just a lipstick, see? GERTL makes a show of opening the tube of lipstick […]

What I’m Saying: The Bathtub Mermaid

Description: #Audio. Many voices, one common wish for peace and social justice Excerpt: Fill the hearts of mankind with the fire of your love, and with the desire to ensure justice for all. Links and References The Dog Days of Advent Special thanks Nuchtchas of NIMLAS Studios Special thanks (in order of appearance) to Selena, […]

Description: #Audio. A mother finds solace in music during a delay at the airport. Excerpt: Kathleen stared up at the status board, and couldn’t help letting out a frustrated groan. Her flight had been delayed. Again. She liked her life as a road warrior, for the most part. She got to stay in lovely hotels, […]

Description: #Audio. Happy Hanukkah! It’s the second night of Hanukkah, so this is a Hanukkah story. Excerpt: She played the chord again, and saw the children gathered around her focus their attention. And why not? They’d grown up with digital instruments: violins and cellos that relied on computer chips for their tone, guitars that made […]